Bartolo Colon goes on A’s DL; Tommy Milone to start tomorrow

All-Star Bartolo Colon, whose past two starts have been his worst since early in the season, strained his left groin while doing flat-ground work yesterday. Trainer Nick Paparesta stopped Colon’s throwing session and manager Bob Melvin announced today that Colon will go on the 15-day DL and Tommy Milone will start in Colon’s place tomorrow against Cleveland.

“He came in today and it was sore again, so this is the prudent thing to do,” Melvin said of Colon’s groin injury.

With Milone joining the A’s today, Brett Anderson (stress fracture, right foot) is now starting for Triple-A Sacramento rather than pitching in relief, and he will go three innings (or 50 pitches) rather than two. Melvin said this is a case of the A’s keeping their options open – with Colon going on the DL, Anderson potentially becomes more valuable in the rotation.

“You never know how things go from here,” Melvin said. “We looked at it and after the Bartolo situation today we felt it was probably the right thing to do.”

Milone said he was primarily working on keeping his stuff down at Sacramento and also on polishing up his curveball, which he doesn’t use all that much but which was working well with the River Cats. He had a 1.74 ERA in two starts, allowing 16 hits in 10 1/3 innings – and striking out 15 while walking one.

Considering that Colon’s velocity has been down much of the second half and he had poor results his past two times out, allowing 10 runs in 6 2/3 innings, a break might not be a bad thing for the 40-year-old.

“He certainly doesn’t want to (rest),” Melvin said. “He wants to make every start he can. Based on the fact he’s had a great season for us and he’s a guy we’ve leaned on pretty hard and has 14 wins to this point, it’s not easy. You always want him to be able to pitch, but maybe with his age and so forth, a little break at this point in time might be good for him.”

Melvin said that Coco Crisp (left wrist) is unlikely to play tonight or tomorrow; Melvin is hopeful that Monday will be the day. Crisp was on the field doing pregame work.

It’s Dan Straily on the mound for Oakland – if he’s made it in yet. He tweeted about an hour ago that he was still stuck in the parking lot. It’s a madhouse out there between the Yoenis Cespedes bobblehead giveaway and the circus next door. Lines for the bobblehead started at 10 a.m., I understand.

“When you drove up today, it crossed your mind maybe it was an earlier game time,” Melvin said with a grin of the large crowd already there this morning. “It is kind of neat. … I guess the Yoenis bobblehead is a popular item.”

Cespedes gave the people what they wanted: With a large crowd here for batting practice, he did his usual bashing, including hitting one homer into the second deck of Mt. Davis, dead center.